Anthony left the good ship Duplicat this morning, on his journey back to the UK and the world of work. It wasn’t without a few last minute hiccups of course! We’d planned to use the water-taxi from ‘Big Mama’s Yacht Club’, Pangaimotu - the resort on the island where we are anchored. We could have taken our dinghy - its just over 1.5nm to the mainland, but it was easier and drier to use their big boat. However, with the front coming through last night, we had lots of rain and wind - and the resort had moved their boat around to the other side of the island, where the tide had left it high-and-dry.

“We’ll take the little tinny”, Earle said - but the outboard on that wasn’t playing. We did think we’d end up taking our dinghy but in the end they got the Chinese clone of a yamaha engine running - though not without a few bloody knuckles for the resort staff.

Its been great fun with Anthony over the last 7 months. Its shared the jobs out a bit, and I’ve had a dive buddy which has been great. He will be sorely missed over the coming weeks, especially as we’re faced with the 1100nm leg to New Zealand with just 2 of us sharing watches. No longer will we have the luxury of one watch per night!

Thanks again, Anthony. Hope its not too much of a shock back in the office ;)